


Presence

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malia is not the most gentle person when it comes down to it, but she's the person that comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Presence

**Author's Note:**

> In answer to the prompt: Malydia + Things you said with no space between us.

Lydia is not having a panic attack.

Panic attacks, while resulting in very real, physical symptoms, start in your head. Therefore Lydia is not having a panic attack. Because she can control what is going on in her head. 

The door to her room is being forced open. Lydia winces when the doorknob collides with the wall, her fingers gripping her sheets. She can't see the figure standing in the doorway, can't make her eyes look in the right direction, but her hearing picks up things it doesn't when she has her other senses to distract her.  
In the house next door there's a baby screaming. Across the street they're having a fight over who was supposed to wash the dishes. There are footsteps approaching her bed.

Lydia tries forcing herself to breathe. She knows it's possible, there is nothing preventing her from transporting the oxygen to her lungs. Except for herself. She drags in another all too shallow breath, trying for inhaling through the nose this time.  
There are fingers closing around her wrist.

"Lydia!" The voice is so loud, so close, so forceful that Lydia flinches, even though she knows she has better self control than that, and turns.  
The crease between Malia's eyebrows is deep and the only thing that is in proper focus. 

"Lydia, you were screaming." Malia's voice is neither kind, nor calming. She's stating a fact. It's strangely calculating in a way that Lydia usually reserves for her own thoughts, always running two hundred miles an hour.  
She tries to tell Malia that it's okay. She gasps, again.

"You have to stop," Malia says and Lydia wishes she could scream.  
"Lydia, just- Scott isn't here, I don't know what to do." Lydia should. Lydia should know what to do. She does know what to do. She can't talk.

She manages to raise her hand. Malia looks down and doesn't complain when nails cut into her skin. She doesn't look up again.  
"I want to help you." Another hand is placed on top of Lydia's, without even trying to pry her off.

In the back off her head Lydia registers that she can't hear the baby screaming anymore when Malia leans in and gives a long suffering sigh, like she's had enough of Lydia. Or maybe not Lydia. Herself. The various forms of trauma they all carry around with them.  
The air Malia exhales flits over Lydia's earlobe. It's loud. It drowns out most of the other sounds that are intruding on Lydia's brain.

She still can't breathe. She tugs on Malia's hand.

Malia comes so willingly that it almost surprises Lydia, but then it doesn't. Lydia hates being touched by the wrong people, had it done to her too often. Malia, while being wildly disrespectful of her personal space, has never overstepped the important boundaries. 

Once Lydia is sure that her ears are picking up only what is in her immediate vicinity she notices that Malia is in her pajamas. It occurs to her that she isn't wondering how Malia got here.  
She feels like she can control her own breathing again, she's aware of the way Malia smells where Lydia's nose is only inches away from her collarbone.

Malia's chin is resting on top of her head. Lydia can feel the words when Malia says:  
"I heard you screaming in my sleep." 

Lydia evens out her breathing.


End file.
